Blast Furnaces, Bernhard Becher; Hilla Becher

Exhibition Label: "Art for Kansas: Building the Collection, 1988-1998 (Recent Acquisitions)," Nov-1998, John Pultz and Susan Earle This work was acquired, in part, as an example of photography as conceptual art, a movement that arose during the 1970s that focuses more on the ideas behind a work of art than on the finished product. As conceptual artists, the husband-and-wife team of Bernd and Hilla Becher exploit the potential of photography to categorize and sequence the "stuff" of the world. They travel throughout the United States and Western Europe making photographs of vernacular industrial architecture, such as blast furnaces, water towers, gas tanks, and mineheads. The structures are photographed individually, in sharp focus, from similar vantage points, and under overcast skies that allow for little shadow. The photographs are then grouped together by type and presented in grids. Exhibition Label: "Modernisms: Late/Post," Mar-1997, Deborah J. Wilk The husband-and-wife team of Bernd and Hilla Becher travel around Western Europe taking pictures of industrial vernacular architecture. The photographs are then grouped together by type and presented in grids they call "typologies." Each structure is photographed individually, in sharp focus, from similar vantage points, and under overcast skies that allow for little shadow. Archive Label 2003: Bernd and Hilla Becher have worked in collaboration since 1959. Together, they make photographs of such industrial structures as cooling towers, grain elevators, and blast furnaces, which they then arrange into grid-like compositions. The Bechers title their groupings “typologies,” studies of functionally similar structures that highlight the aesthetic variations. As seen in Blast Furnaces, the Bechers manipulate their images so that each fragment and each work taken as a whole functions in the manner of a still life, as inanimate objects removed from all function. The images are tightly cropped in order to eliminate any reference to specific locale or human activity. The Bechers photograph each structure from a similar vantage point and under overcast skies that allow for little shadow, furthering an anonymous and repetitive quality, as if one still life element could easily be substituted for another. Exhibition Label: "Contemporary Photographs: Rethinking the Genres," Oct-2000, Rachel Epp Buller Bernd and Hilla Becher have worked in collaboration since 1959. Together, they make photographs of such industrial structures as cooling towers, grain elevators, and blast furnaces, which they then arrange into grid-like compositions. The Bechers title their groupings “typologies,” studies of functionally similar structures that highlight the aesthetic variations. In order to further the similarities, each structure is photographed from a similar vantage point and under overcast skies that allow for little shadow. The images are tightly cropped in order to eliminate any reference to specific locale or human activity. The Blast Furnaces appear to exist as inanimate objects removed from all function, in the manner of a still life.